Photography is all about Colors and Light. In this ever changing digital era, camera manufacturers throwing in their best of the research and technology to produce the camera sensors which are capable of capturing great dynamic range and wider real life like colors. “We”, photographers invest a lot of money in getting the best of the cameras in the market in order to achieve best of the image quality.

Shoot in RAW mode?

Most of the photographers shoot in RAW mode so that they have scope of correcting their images during post processing in terms of Exposure, White Balance, Colors, Sharpness and Contrast. There are many RAW processing application available for this like Adobe Photoshop CC, Lightroom to name the few. In RAW mode, Camera records The entire dynamic range and entire range of colors, a sensor can capture and saves it on the memory card as a RAW file.

Presentation / Output / Final Result ?

Since the inception of this art of Photography, printing was always been one of the most preferred or the only way of presentation of the images photographed. Now in the digital era, with increasing use of large digital screens, LCD’s, Plasma’s etc has been widely used for showcasing or displaying the photographs. Thanks to the social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube etc. Prints are mainly used only for exhibitions, Magazines, books, news papers, advertising boards and posters and other print media based publications.

Now have you ever faced any of the below problems ?

You Processed an image and uploaded on your online portfolio or Instagram or Facebook and people complain about the quality or the color cast on the image ?

Your processed RAW image looks unreal and over saturated on different laptops and systems.

Your best of the images got disqualified in a photography competition or Exhibition ?

What is Wrong ? Being Color Blind ?

The reason is One of the most neglected / ignored point in the Image making process and i.e. Color Accuracy and Calibration.

Most of the photographers use their laptops and desktops to post process their RAW images and even view there jpeg images from the camera. Now ask yourself a question.. Is you laptop LCD/Desktop LCD is capable of showing you the exact colors and light ?

Color Accuracy and Correction ?

Generally, Camera’s LCD screens are the most reliable and color calibrated output devices. Before discussing about Color Accuracy and Correction, it is necessary to understand the word “Color Space / Color Gamut”. The Range of visible colors that can be captures/reproduced/displayed is nothing but Color Space. There are two widely used color spaces 1. sRGB 2. AdobeRGB

sRGB is the most widely used color space which is standard for Internet. Its a standard for .jpeg files as well. Irrespective of the color space, whenever you convert images to .jpeg the color space is converted in to sRGB. Almost all digital displays, printers and scanners are standardized around sRGB.

AdobeRGB is wider color gamut than sRGB. I.e. It consists of wider range of colors. But it requires specific output devices such as printers and displays to be able to print and display that wide range of colors. AdobeRGB has an advantage when it comes to printing provided printer is capable of printing that color space.

Average Laptops and desktops LCD can reproduce only max of 60 to 70% of sRGB color space. So in fact these LCDs are not even capable of showing you the entire range of colors captures by your camera sensor. In such situation, it becomes difficult to post process your images as you are enable to see all the colors.

Apart from Colors, Black Levels and White Levels are also critical. The overall luminosity of the image depends on that where most of the consumer grade Laptop LCDs and LCD monitor fails. Ideally display LCD should show you exact level of bright and dark levels.

Welcome to the world of Color Accuracy and Color Calibration that will lead you to understand the importance of the “Color Calibrated Professional Display” solution.

Thanks to ViewSonic VP Series Professional Monitors that I am really happy that now I am no more digitally Color Blind.

This Professional display has so many features like Frameless display for infinity viewing, Swivel Base, non-reflective IPS display with great viewing angles, auto pivot feature for easy vertical setup. It has HDMI ports and Display Ports. It comes with Mini Display to display port cable.

I am working as a Natural History Photographer since more than a decade now and worked on many system including iMacs, Macbook Pro, Windows based Desktops and Laptops.

Why ViewSonic VP Series Monitors for my color critical work ?

Hardware color calibration –

Direct Hardware Calibration is the most sophisticated and most accurate method of monitor calibration available. There is a 14 Bit LUT 3D LUT data built into the Monitor itself. So it does not rely on internal color management applications, drivers or functionality of software or OS. LUT is nothing but a translation table between the colour you should be getting, and the colour you actually are getting, is created and installed. It corrects all liner and non liners errors in the digital displays. 14 Bit Look up table assures more data to match with. Software calibration is only 8 Bit and is less accurate and reliable. When the monitor is shipped, it is shipped with factory calibrated unit.

99% sRGB Color Gamut –

VP Series Monitors are equipped to reproduce almost entire sRGB color space which is the most widely used standard in today’s digital display industry.

Note : There are Few Models of ViewSonic VP Series which Provides 99% Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 Color Spaces.

Color Accuracy – Delta E<2 –

Delta E is the standard calculation metric which correlates the human visual judgment of differences between two perceived colors. The higher the Delta E (ΔE), the further away the color is from the true hue, using CIELAB. Perfect color has a Delta E of zero, although this cannot be detected using the human eye. The minimal detectable difference is between 1-2.5 Delta E.

Black and White Levels –

VP Series Monitor can produce very accurate and uniform luminosity across the display area. That means you see accurate amount of shadows and brightness information. This makes sure that your brighness and contrast remain consistent on your screen and in your prints.

I parted from Windows based machines since 5 years and no regret. My Current setup includes, 4k iMac, Macbook Pro and MacBook Air all hooked on to my Hardware Color Calibrated ViewSonic VP2468 Monitor. As i compared all the Lcds i work with including the one from apple, ViewSonic is my favorite as it give the most accurate representation of what i shot so that i post process them to correct and enhance the images.